TUI MAGIC LIFE Kalawy — Hotel in Red Sea

Here's an honest review about my stay in the MAGICLIFE Kalawy Club with all the factors like the problems, features, etc... included (of course can only speak from experience and cannot speak about things I didn't see myself). Let's begin with the most important problems as I want these to be seen:

---- SHIGELLA (!!!!!) ---- The doctor's report just came in and I've caught shigella during my stay in the hotel, which indicates insufficient hygiene!! Please be careful in this club and DON'T drink any TEA OFFERED to you at the BASAR, don't drink tap water/ice and avoid uncooked/raw food including salad and raw fruit/vegetables!

---- The Cats (!!!) ---- The cats are not fed properly!!! During my stay, I saw very skinny cats and mother cats with their babies BEGGING for food. The very little food they give is neither enough nor nutritious enough for healthy cats. None of the cats is neutered. Please feed the cats more, neuter and vaccinate them!!

---- The WiFi (!!) ---- Roaming in Egypt is quite expensive. So if you really need wifi in your room, get a SIM card at the airport. The wifi is terrible. It's slow as hell and doesn't even connect in most places (even the rooms!). This is a problem that MUST be resolved in my opinion.

---- Food ---- The food is mediocre/good but the variety is not really much. It's the basically the same everyday and after a few days, you probably will be tired of it.

---- The Transport via TUI ---- TUI provided a way to get from the airport to the hotel on arrival and back to the airport on departure. Right after the exit of there airport, there was a small booth with the TUI logo on it and they directed us to the vehicle. On arrival, the transportation was a bit shady. We weren't even seated in the bus yet and the driver already asked for a tip when loading the luggage. I am aware that people earn not much there but it still isn't very polite asking for a tip when you don't even have done much yet. As a solution, I would suggest a tip box in the bus or asking AFTER the transportation. Another point I saw was, that the luggage is being transported on the roof of the vehicle, which I thought was not very safe, but I may be wrong. The transport took about 1 hour and 20 minutes but the car broke down twice during the transport. Each time we halted on the side of the road and the driver tried fixing the car himself.

---- Relax Pool ---- The Relax Pool is a small, rather shallow pool near the beach. There aren't as many deck chairs as there were on the activity pool, but I found it sufficient. Every now and then a waiter comes and asks you if you want to drink something from the bar on the beach. That service is very nice! The lifeguard also keeps an eye on all guests and tells people to be more quiet if they're too loud because it's an relax pool after all. All lifeguards were super nice! It has a nice temperature, although can get quite hot during the day and doesn't really offer a real cool-off anymore as the evening gets closer.

---- Main Pool ---- I cannot really speak for the main pool but it is definitely the biggest pool of the whole club. The deck chairs are already mostly occupied in the morning though, so you have to be rather quick with reserving one.

---- Bar at the Main Pool ---- The main pool offers a bar where you can get basically the same drinks as on the beach bar and the Wunderbar at the reception. It does offer snacks everyday though.

---- Other Bars ---- There's the Wunderbar at the reception and the beach bar at – well – the beach. There's also a bar at the amphitheatre. All bars offer basically the same menu.

---- Trattoria (Italian Restaurant) ---- The food was mediocre there. The menu didn't have much on it really. And we saw a few cockroaches on the floor.

---- Rooms ---- The rooms are a bit older already. Other than that, pretty functional. The AC is way too load in my opinion and makes sleeping difficult. The wifi doesn't work great or even at all in all of the rooms.

I would write a more extensive review, but unfortunately Google Maps doesn't...

We visited TML Kalawy in July this year, having been extremely impressed with the listing and the range of activities promised. Unfortunately, we didn't find that it matched up to everything we hoped for, and I don't think we'll be back!||Firstly to put everything in context, the hotel itself is absolutely stunning. Located as a bit of a green oasis in contrast with the desert surrounding it on three sides, the accommodation is of a good standard and there are various pools, bars and restaurants to enjoy, although the highlight is almost certainly the opportunity to explore the reef at the end of the jetty.||The staff were also absolutely excellent, with nothing being too much trouble and when we had our room cleaned (we went for once every 2-3 days - these guys work hard enough!) it was always done to a very high standard.||The food ranged from very good to OK depending on what night it was; sometimes you'd go into a large griddle cooking mountains of fresh prawns, other nights it could be a bit of a struggle to find anything which looked appealing.||The standard of drinks wasn't too great although it depended what you were after; the gin and tonic from the beach bar was barely drinkable but others were OK. We went to a TUI all-inclusive resort in Mexico a few years back and the drinks in Kalaway weren't a patch on that place.||We were disappointed with some of the activities offered, as when booking we'd narrowed it down to two resorts, and we paid the extra to go to this one as it seemed to offer more such as scuba diving, canoeing, wind-surfing, paddle boarding and plenty more. In truth there were about 7 paddle boards for the resort and if they were out you just had to wait, no option to windsurf unless you had a licence (or pay for lessons) and scuba diving was limited to a 3 minute taster session in the pool after which you had to pay 500 euros per person to train for a licence. Perhaps this was all in the listing but we certainly didn't see it, and an extra 2500 euros on top of the price of the holiday wasn't an option!||The entertainment on offer was also pretty poor; the 'white party' was - perhaps unsurprisingly - just an evening where people wore white clothes and didn't seem to vary apart from that. The shows were all fairly average, and the open air cinema seemed to show the same films during both weeks with no variation at all. Again we've been to other TUI resorts which have done a much better job of delivering on this, and I'm sure it's no coincidence that most people just headed to the main bar in the evenings.||The main bug-bear though was the daily fight to try to get anywhere to lie down. There was absolutely no policing of the sun loungers and unless you'd got up at dawn you were unlikely to be able to find anything until around 2pm. Some of the other guests were extremely entitled too, believing that not only had they reserved the space they were in but also a 3 metre radius of them too in case they wanted to move at a later time, so trying to find any shade was next to impossible. I am aware than all resorts have issues with selfish people sunbed 'reserving' but it seemed far worse here than anywhere else we've been, and sometimes we saw loungers with towels on them go for 4+ hours without anyone sitting on them. The genuine likelihood of ending up in a stand-up row with someone just for a chance to sit down really takes the enjoyment out of the holiday, especially when you've paid a lot of money to come.||In summary is it the worst place we've been? Probably not, but it's certainly in the lower half, and for the price we paid there's much better places to go within the TUI network. If you do go make sure you visit the Chill tours guys as they run a number of great excursions, and it's probably a sad reflection of our time here that the days we got away from the hotel were the highlights of...

A wonderful holiday in a very nice resort. Food and service were excellent and drinks were good too although I would like the soft drinks to be colder. Staff were fantastic and very helpful and the resort was always clean and tidy. I would recommend taking Sterling, dollars and Euro as they take it all. You can get money out there but everywhere we went, they would take all currency, so make sure you have the cash. Plus, make sure you have change to tip. They like a tip. Again, coins in either sterling or Euro. As the resort is in the middle of now where which is the idea if you want to buy anything its quite expensive especially if your kids want sweets Crisps etc. Also the snorkeling is amazing so if you can bring the kit with you as we had to buy although roughly the same price it added to the expense of the holiday. The entertainment team were good but they were centred around the activity pool and not the slide pool so if you want to be involved choose this pool to sit around. Also the evening entertainment was ok but very samey, same 6 dancers most nights so quite boring. Need to change it up and have different acts to make it more entertaining. The disco area was good but again same dance songs etc. The silent disco on the other way was awesome and we all loved it as was the beach party too. We also did 4 trips while we were there. 1st trip to the pyramids in Cairo. For 5 it cost £1200 but that included an internal flight. So start time is 2am. My advice don't take the breakfast bag as you can get something to eat at the airport. Plus bring sun tan cream in 100ml bottle to take on the flight. Once in Cairo we had a great guide and bus driver and don't be put off my your security guard. Everyone will be looking to make money from you so don't hand your phone to anyone to the photos no matter who they say they are. We also had the camel rides at the pyramids which was great and our mini guides did take photos and wanted a tip but actually thr photos were worth it. Just say no to anyone else especially if you are walking from place to place. The museum in Cairo was amazing but very hot inside, roughly 42c so try and bring water in with you. All in all though the Cairo trip was amazing. 2nd trip was snorkeling (don't do the yellow submarine trip) This was fantastic and my boys aged 7,9 and 13 loved it. 3 chances to swim and the fish were amazing. The boat team were excellent and food and drinks provided. Food was very good too. Again you will be asked to tip so have cash. Plus the photos and videos although mine haven't come through yet. 3rd Luxor Deluxe Amazing but very hot. The trip was long. Again early start so if you have kids like me maybe take food from the restaurant the night before as the breakfast bags weren't great. Plus don't buy anything from the service stop, way to expensive. Again you will need money to go to the toilet so have cash or coins. We had a fantastic guide and explained the whole day and trip. Again hot so make sure you have a lot of water. We had 12 bottles which wasn't enough but our guide did get us more. This was an amazing day although hot it was unreal seeing these buildings, tombs etc. Loved it as did the family. Again you will need to tip so have cash. 4rd was the desert experience. Later start so grab food from breakfast and fill up your bags. Scarfs are available there for £3 and you will need a scarf for the sand. The buggy and quad bikes were fun although I would have loved to go faster. The best bit was the desert driving, we had an amazing drivers and it was a thrill a minute. The boys loved this the best. Food was ok but you get back in time for dinner so all ok.

So all in all a great resort, clean, tidy and good food. Expensive and lots of tipping.

Oh get a Sim card at the airport for about £8 dollars as the WiFI is ropey...